What if the world is just a stupid set of ridiculous rules?
I was always thinking about one thing - what if we would take a newborn boy, let's call him Sam, and place him in some sort of artificial town (like Truman Show) and instead of showing that newborn all the normal rules of life, we would make him do ridiculous things. For instance, could we trick Sam to always walk backward? Could we not teach Sam how to lie and get him tell the truth all the time? Could we make him believe that humans get married to remote controls (well, that would be nothing new to some people...)? And the list goes on and on and on.
After Sam is fully grown with a very strange and different perception of life, would he be able to adapt to our world? Or it would seem like a ridiculous and stupid place? "Who the hell walks ahead?" Sam would say when he saw all the people. This question always boggles me... because I kind of know that we could shape Sam just the way we want and he wouldn't be able to do it. So why are we still so ignorant to think that it was us who shaped how we think? I mean, what if we are living in an artificial town called "Earth" and someone is laughing at our illogical set of rules?
Where am I heading? Well, this radical example of poor Sam was a way to show that we are all influenced by the others, and we cannot do a thing about that. That is why what is normal in one culture, might sound stupid to another. Can any traditions be more right than the others? Well, I don't think so. After all, they are all artificial and fake.
Yeah, reminded me of an archaeology professor I once had (before I dropped out), who told a story about him visiting a remote African village, somewhere in Central Africa.
He was staying with this tribe in tiny village. No technology, no modern things whatsoever (mind you, this is probably 20-30 years ago). He would wonder why the tribesmen took so little notice of the airplanes that often flew over the village, and asked them, what they believed it was.
"Oh, those are just the iron dragons", they replied (according to him, anyways).
A few days later a man from the neighbor village came along. He had an ox (or some beast) dragging his cart. This was of great amusement to the folks in the tribe; apparently they had never seen anyone putting an animal and a cart together, and found it laughable, even ridiculous.
I'm not sure how credible this story is, but it comes from an esteemed professor (...), and I guess it goes to show how cultural constructs can (and do) affect our lives.
Even if it is a fake story, it is great example still. It is fascinating how we think that we do it all right, but never even thought that we could do everything else completely different!
Yes. We are all susceptible to that, whether we think it or not...
it's so frustrating that you can never know if you are being controlled by someone. we think we are doing things. but are we? there is no way to tell that for sure. everything happening around, are they supposed to happen like that or could we change them. if we did change them, then may be the change was supposed to happen anyway.
these thoughts are something that can lead you to madness. so we should stay away from this.
Well, I think we should try to observe those thoughts as much as possible! I mean, the beauty of life lies beneath those thoughts and ideas for me!
Nice post!
And what's crazy is... to be 'safe', you just have to simply play by the rules of a particular society, subset, village, etc. and it's amazing how those rules could vary so greatly from group to group. We're all humans living on Earth...and yet we haven't even come close to developing a Universal set of rules. The more you think about it, the stranger it gets. You say "artificial" and I interpret this as man-made. Some would like to believe that a Higher being set the moral compass... but again, that's simply not the case as there are 1000's of Higher beings for all different peoples across the globe, playing by different rules. It's a circular discussion. In fact, you could even live completely by your own set of rules, as long as your willing to suffer the consequences of law in the society in which you are playing.
Yeah, it is quite fascinating! I still believe that some higher energy controls all our actions in one way or another but that's a discussion for another time!
Haha, that was funny and though-provoking at the same time.
Thank you!
You are welcome!
Artificial, may be but fake NOOOOOOOO.
Most animals are born knowing what to do the second they are born. The less intelligent the creature is the more it knows, when it is created or borne, what its survival needs are. Human sets on the top of the intelligence pyramid, yet it took me six damn years to learn how to clean my ass. I don’t know how long it took everyone else but that was 10% of my years. Coincidence or design? The only thing we all born to know is suck. . Many never grew out of it and they still suck. Life is a huge university and not everyone goes to university is a student. And university is nothing but a set of stupid different majors and rules.